THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1905. THE NEW BRITISH CABINET

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 50, 14 December 1905, Page 17

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1905. THE NEW BRITISH CABINET

T^spsfy HE now British Cabinet is (as the French fJ^MpW would phrase it) a Ministry of all the tal%f\{\\ * cnls " Nearly all its members have made ■^JjA^T their mark m the arena of British or of Impenal politics. Several of them take high %\"\J%k ancl honorable rank among the statesmen of X4w ' our day— such as, for instance, the Marquis of Ripon (Lord Privy Seal), who was, perhaps, the best Governor-General that e\cr ruled over the teeming millions of India. Earl Crcwe and Lord Elgin also attained \ iceregal rank. Sir R. Reid (Lord High Chancellor) was decorated for the conspicuous services which he tendered as a member of the Venezuelan Boundaiy Ai bit rat ion Commission. Others have won laurels on the public platform and m the clash of parliamentary debate By sheer force of character and organising talent Mr. John Burns (President of the Local Government Board) caived his rugged way from the kerbstone to the Cabinet. He is England's first working-man Minister, and is, in many respects, the most picturesque figure in the newly-formed Liberal Government. Mr. Bryce (Secretary for Ireland) has long been in the world's eye as an authority of the fust rank on matters educational. And Mr. John Morlcy (Secretary for India), Mr. Birrcll (President of the Board of Education), J-nd Mr. Ilaldane (Secrctaiy for War) have won spins of gold Jin dners lields of 'the broad rdahn \oi liteiatuie.

' r I he " Tunes," ' says a cable despatch, ' says that the /inclusion of Mr. lkyee and the Karl of Aberdeen shows that Home Rule will be a \ital factor' in the policy of Ihe new Ministry. So may it be. This will he about, the third time m a hundred and ten years that a Viceroy has been sent to Ireland with a message ot peace and "hope and &uud Mill. The fust was Lord Fit/uilliam. lie went to Ireland in 1795 with the promise ot the long-delayed Catholic Emancipation. The hopes oi Catholics were raised (as Lccky says) ' almost

to certainty.' But they were speedily ' dashed to the ground ' by Pitt, the steady object of whose later Irish policy (says the same great authority) ' was to corrupt and to degrade, in order that he ultimately might destroy, the Legislature of the country.' ' Mr. Pitt,' says Sir Jonah Harrington,; ' having sent Lord Fitzwilliam to Ireland with unlimited powers to satisfy the nation, permitted him to proceed until he had unavoidably committed himself both to the Catholics and the country, when he suddenly recalled him, leaving it in a slate of excitement and dismay. The day Lord Fitzwilliiam 1 - arrived, peace was proclaimed throughout all Ireland ; the day he, quitted it, she prepared for insurrection. . . Within three months after Lord Fitzwilliam's dismissal, Lord Clare had got the nation into training for military execution.' ' The people,' he adds, ' were goaded and driven to madness ' by military brutalities ; ' Pitt's object was now effected, and an insurrection was excited.' Lecky also confirms the verdict of this eyewitness, declaring that ' the rebellion of 1798, with all the accumulated l miseries it entailed, was the direct and predicted consequence of his (Pitt's) policy.' ♦ Another viceregal ambassador was sent with an ofive-branch to Ireland in ISB6. In February of that year Mr. Gladstone had returned to power on the fall of the Salisbury Ministry. A new policy of peace was adopted towards the Cinderella Isle. To carry it out, the Earl of Aberdeen was sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. Mr. John Morlcy (the new Secretary of State for India) accompanied him as Chief Secretary for Ireland. The Earl of Aberdeen was, perhaps, the most popular of the long line of Irish Viceroys. Much of the kindly feeling with "which he was \iewcd was (says T. D. Sullivan in his recently published ' Recollections ') meant to honor his wife, ' who, during her sojourn in Ireland, had interested herself in many good works, and earned Ithe gratitude of thousands of people to whom she had been a benefactress.' Unhappily, their stay in the Green Isle was, like that of Lord Fit/vvilliam, all too brief. Mr. Gladstone's fust Homo Rule Bill was defeated by a majority of thirty m the House of Commons on June 7,, 188 b. A general election ensued. The Liberals returned to the House in a minority The Earl of Aberdeen was superseded in the viceroyalty ot Ireland, and ho left) Dublin on August J, 188(>, amidst such an overwhelming demonstration of popular respect and affection as had never belore (says Sullivan) been tendered to a representative of the So\ereign in Ireland. * Lord Aberdeen's departure from Ireland was, in fact, a grand Home Rule demonstration. So, too, will be Ins return. The sentiment of nationality is undying and irrepressible in the Irish breast. Attempts ha\ c been made to drive Home Rule beneath the surface, to convince the world that it was coflined, to snow it under by misrepresentation and ridicule, to ' kill it with kindness ' But it will not down. The reasons for it aie practically as cogent to-day as when they were summed up by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the following true and forceful words in a speech at Holloway on Juno \fs, 188\~> — in Ihe days before he turned his political coat and ' ratted ' from the Liberal party : ' I do not beho\e that the great majority of Englishmen have the slightest, conception of the system under which this lice nation attempts to mle the sister counliv. It is a sv^tun which is founded on Hie bayonets ot .3d, 000 soldiers encamped permanently as in a hostile countiy. It is a system ay completely centralised and bureaucratic as that with which Russia governs Poland, or as that which prevailed in Venice under the Austrian rule. An Irishman at this moment cannot move a slep— he cannot lift a finger in any parochial, municipal, or educational work, without beuii.', confronted with, inteiiered with, controlled by an English official, appointed by a foreign Government, and without a shade or shadow of

representative authority. I say the time has come to reform altogether this absurd and irritating anachronism which is known as Dublin Castle.'